Creating the Perfect Pizza Kitchen

 
 

Little Caesars brand is iconic, its customer loyalty is superb, its footprint is formidable and its product is extremely affordable. While it has established itself as the best value in pizza, the digital experience is falling behind.

 

Role: Design Lead | Responsibilities: Research + Strategy, Product Design, User Testing

 
 

The Challenge

Inefficiency At The Heart Of Their Operation

The original CaesarVision was developed over 20 years ago and has been incrementally improved over time.  As the needs of consumers have evolved, online ordering exploded and delivery service provider marketplaces have emerged, it was clear that CaesarVision could not continue to be financially viable for the company while keeping up with the pace of change.

The Solution

A Next-Generation Technology Ecosystem

Completely transform their kitchen with a custom built point of sale system and KDS that increased operational efficiency,  integrated a framework for easily integrating delivery and other 3rd party services, enabled advanced analytics to drive business performance, scaled the system to international regions and fostered employee satisfaction. 

 
 
 
 
 

Discovery

Qualitative Research

We observed employees at three different stores to understand how CaesarVision is being used today, its pain points and areas that can be improved upon. We saw how a Friday night rush can cause havoc on the make line if you aren’t prepared and how busy the lunch hours can be for some stores.

We built relationships with the franchisee owners of these stores and gleaned key insights in the day to day operations of the store and what they need most out of this new system.

 
 

Key Insights

Cumbersome

The current PoS has lots of capabilities & functionality, but it can feel overwhelming and too feature-rich for some employees/users.

Steep learning curve

It also has a high learning curve that requires days of in-store training; with a rotating staff, this can be highly inefficient.

Too static

Many of features and functionality are not dynamic. They do not adapt to the situation and require manual customization.

 
 
 
 
 
 

The Designs

We leveraged a human-centered approach to make onboarding and training easier, and embraced data so the system could evolve the Little Caesars' patented Hot-N-Ready promise and deepen their competitive capabilities.

 
 

Point of Sale

Front of house
Customer Service Station
Primary Team Member Tool


Key Priorities

Simplicity & Speed
Quick Learning Curve
Eliminating Sales Friction

Make Line

Back of house
Convergence of Activity
Timing & Accuracy Critical


Key Priorities

Team Member Accuracy
Alleviate Chaos & Stress
Remove Guesswork & Waste

Landing

Back of house
Process bottleneck
Final touchpoint


Key Priorities

Operational Speed
Quality Assurance
Customer Satisfaction

 
 
 
 
 

HNR Tiles

The Hot-n-Ready tiles provide employees visibility like they have never had before. Cashiers can now see how many HNR pizzas they have available at a given time and if any are in the oven. By having the real time inventory displayed on the home tab, we were able reduced friction at checkout, limit product waste and improve staff communication.

 
 
 

Simple to use and powerful too

Whether ordering a custom pizzas or just removing a topping from a 5 Meat Feast™, we want a pizza builder that could handle whatever the customer would throw at us.

 
 
 
 

Making modifications is just a click away.


In the past most modification like well done or sauce on the side had to
be done with a text based note. Now an employee simply needs to select
an item in the cart to bring up an item’s unique set of modifications.

By enabling smart modifiers, we can now display relevant job aids, require additional bake times and flag unique items on the make and landing stations.

 

The Kitchen Display Screens

Make Station | Landing Station

 
 

User Testing

We tested the working software a total of three times with franchise owners, store managers and team members. The goal of our first two tests were to not only observe usability and capture real-time feedback in a controlled environment, but also to see how well the system would perform when simulating real life scenarios.

Our first test primarily focused on placing orders on the Point of Sale. For our second test, we designed a dynamic test that allowed each participant to complete all key scenarios at each work station. This allowed us to determine how difficult a task would be for both established and novice employees. These specific scenarios were created to mirror the workflow pattern during a typical day in a store.

  • Placing orders at the register

  • Preparing pizzas on make (simulated)

  • Identifying and landing pizzas out of the oven

  • Scanning out orders and fulfilling from HNR

 
 
 

The complexity of designing testing scenarios for all three systems. We wanted some control, but also allowed for mistakes to have a trickle down effect similar to how it would exist in a normal store.

 
 
 

The final test we threw out the script and actually cooked the pizzas this time. We spent the day working alongside and observing teammates using the software. This 6 hour event was as close to a real store experience that we could observe and learn from before the pilot release. The event allowed everyone to use the software with real customers and provide feedback.

 
 
 
 
 

Viewing a custom order on the Make Station

I demonstrated the full register, make and landing screens to international franchise operators without any prior training.
It was that easy.

 

The lobby during the busy lunch rush

This system supported the equivalent business of a busy Friday night, but in less than 3 hours – The system is still standing?
That is incredible.

 
 
 
 

Landing station busy at work

“The new landing screen is REALLY helpful because it allows us to more effectively visualize what is coming and not get overwhelmed by
all the paper. “

 
 
 

Testing Feedback

Key Takeaways

  • Landing had trouble recognizing HNR pizzas that were made for an order vs projections
    that needed to go into the cres cor.

  • No way of seeing the status of a paid order unless you clicked into it.

  • No dedicated terminal to handle delivery orders, therefore orders would go out
    without being scanned and remain in the paid tab. This made sorting through over
    50 orders nearly impossible.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Outcomes & Benefits

Serving up superior in store experiences

The goal of this program was to equip the franchise owners and store operators with a system that would not only support, but help grow and accelerate their business. We have seen a night and day difference between stores using the new system verse those that are still on the old platform. Stores have seen overall improvement as it relates to in-store operations, improved inventory predictability, shorter make times and reduced error especially on the landing station.

When we started, lowering the cost of training new employees was a top priority. When we finished, Little Caesars was able to ditch in-person training and provide it virtually because the app was intuitive and easy to learn. We reduced store employee learning curves and strengthened retention rates, all the while decreasing training expenses.

Program Benefits

  • Built for future channels and revenue generating integrations

  • Ability to scale and operate in a nimble way, reducing friction and disruption

  • Create efficiencies across store operations, w/ human-centered interface designs

  • Scalable and automated software deployments, with greater frequency

  • Predictive models to improve store operations, and reducing waste & guesswork

 
 
 

Honors

Little Caesars received the Breakthrough Award for Enterprise Innovator at the MURTEC Executive Summit in 2021.